French fries turned across the fortunes of Jitesh Patel.
He comes from a household of farmers in Gujarat within the northwest of India. Historically they grew cotton, however the returns have been poor.
Droughts in 2001 and 2002 made the scenario worse and the Patels knew issues needed to change.
“We realised that we needed to begin rising one thing that doesn’t require lot of water,” Mr Patel says.
So, they experimented with potatoes. Initially they tried desk potatoes; the sort obtainable in native markets and cooked at dwelling, however the returns weren’t significantly better than cotton.
Spurred by the arrival of french fry makers of their state, in 2007 they began rising the types of potato utilized by the meals trade. It turned out to be a profitable technique.
“Since then, no trying again,” says Mr Patel.
Mr Patel is a part of India’s rise to potato superpower standing. It’s already the world’s second greatest spud producer.
But it surely’s the export market, significantly of french fries, that is actually flying.
Gujarat has turn out to be India’s capital of french fry manufacturing, dwelling to very large factories churning out chips, together with services belonging to Canadian big McCain Meals and India’s greatest maker of French Fries, HyFun Meals.
From Gujarat fries are despatched throughout over the world. However an important markets in the meanwhile are in Asia, together with the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, based on Devendra Ok, who has been finding out the potato market for a few years.
In February of this 12 months, month-to-month exports of Indian frozen fries broke the 20,000 tonnes barrier for the primary time. Within the 12 months to February, India’s fry exports totalled 181,773 tonnes, a forty five% improve in contrast with the earlier 12 months.
The success is partly down to cost.
“Indian frozen fries are famous for being competitively priced within the worldwide market,” says Devendra.
He says that in 2024, the common worth of Indian fries was even cheaper than these from China.
For the french fry makers, it is growth time.
“India has emerged as a big participant and exporter as a result of its considerable agricultural produce, cost-effective manufacturing, and rising give attention to high quality requirements,” says Haresh Karamchandani, CEO of HyFun Meals.
HyFun has seven vegetation processing potatoes in Gujarat with one other two coming on-line by 2026.
“Urbanisation, rising disposable incomes and altering life have promoted the consumption of frozen meals, not solely within the family but additionally in meals service institutions,” says Mr Karamchandani.
The northwestern state of Gujarat is a hub for potatoes and french fries [HyFun Foods]
Assembly that demand has required many years of innovation from farmers.
Jitesh Patel studied agriculture at college and has been making use of science to farming ever since.
Together with family and friends they’re constantly making an attempt to enhance their potato yield.
“We’re a properly educated bunch of farmers, so we hold making an attempt new strategies,” he says.
Certainly one of their first improvements, again in 2003, was to change to a drip system of irrigation, reasonably than flooding fields with water.
To maintain the soil productive the fields are rested over the summer time, and fertilised with cow manure.
Their focus now’s discovering the right potato plant.
“We’re within the technique of experimenting with seeds and shortly we may have a brand new selection,” he says.
Jain Irrigation Methods is a big agricultural know-how firm. In addition to promoting irrigation gear, it has groups of technicians growing seeds for agriculture, together with potato vegetation.
They use a set of methods often called tissue tradition. It is a method of cloning vegetation, with fascinating traits and eliminating illness.
It entails rising small items of plant tissue in a managed laboratory surroundings to create virus-free plantlets. These plantlets can then be used to provide extra seed potatoes via strategies like taking cuttings.
“Potato seeds destined for future seed manufacturing endure meticulous breeding practices beneath the supervision of breeders,” says Vijay Singh, vp of promoting on the firm.
One situation they’re tackling in the meanwhile issues quite a lot of potatoes used to make chips. Farmers discovered that by November the potato crop begins to go brown due to its sugar content material.
“Corporations like us who’re into tissue tradition try to give you a brand new selection to beat the challenges that the trade is dealing with,” says Mr Singh.
HyFun Meals has seven potato processing vegetation in Gujarat [HyFun Foods]
Whereas Indian farmers are engaged on enhancing their yields, funding is required elsewhere within the frozen meals trade.
Particularly, companies want to have the ability to retailer and transport items at sub-zero temperatures.
Fashionable chilly storage services have been constructed, however extra are wanted.
“Solely about 10–15% of India’s chilly storage services are appropriate for storing frozen meals,” says Vijay Kumar Nayak, co-founder of Indo Agri Meals, an exporter of Indian meals.
“These services are inconsistently distributed, closely concentrated in just a few states, leaving rural and distant areas severely underserved.
Transportation is an issue as properly.
“There’s a notable scarcity of specialized refrigerated vans and containers, making temperature-controlled transportation extraordinarily tough and rising the chance of spoilage,” he says.
A dependable electrical energy provide can be important.
“Frequent energy outages in lots of components of the nation improve the possibilities of spoilage and make working a dependable frozen meals provide chain a frightening process,” says Mr Nayak.
“Indian firms face intense competitors in export markets from nations like China, Thailand and Brazil. These nations profit from extra superior logistics, infrastructure, and manufacturing methods,” he factors out.
Again at his Gujarat farm Mr Patel is pleased that the chip makers moved in.
“Gujarat has turn out to be a meals processing hub. Many of the farmers, together with me, have turn out to be contract farmers which supplies us safety and good cash for our yield,” he says.
